A Reconsideration of the Mass Balance of a Portion of the Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctica

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Abstract
The identification of a small region of grounded ice in the north-western sector of the Ross Ice Shelf has forced a re-evaluation of the mass-balance calculations carried out by Thomas and Bentley (1978). Those authors concluded that the Ross Ice Shelf up-stream of Crary Ice Rise was thickening, but they did not take into account the effects on the velocity field of grounded ice (of which they were unaware), which is located near the input gate to their volume element. Reasonable estimates of the degree to which the ice velocity just up-stream of the grounded ice is diminished indicate that it is no longer possible to conclude that the ice shelf is thickening using Thomas and Bentley’s original flow band. Therefore, a new flow band was chosen which was grid east of Thomas and Bentley’s band and unaffected by any nearby grounded areas. The mass balance in this flow band was found to be zero within experimental error; a difference exceeding about 0.2 m a−1in magnitude between the thickening and bottom freeze-on rates is unlikely.

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